This blog reviews war movies with special emphasis on historical accuracy.

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

CRACKER? We Were Soldiers (2002)

“We Were Soldiers” was based on
the acclaimed best seller We Were Soldiers Once…And Young by Lt. Col.
Harold Moore and journalist Joseph Galloway.The book is a non-fiction account of the Battle of Ia Drang in the
Vietnam War.The movie was written, directed,
and produced by Randall Wallace of “Braveheart” and “Pearl Harbor” infamy.

The film opens with a scene set
in 1954 during the First Indochina War pre-Dien Bien Phu.A French unit is ambushed in the Ia Drang
Valley (the Valley of Death) by the Vietminh led by Nguyen Huu Anand wiped out.The action is graphic with “Saving Private
Ryan” style cinematography (quick cuts, slo-mo, POV).It’s a great opening and sets the theme of
“how will the American experience be different?”

The body of the film begins at
Fort Benning, Ga (it was filmed on location) in 1964.Back when America was innocent, naïve, and
overconfident.And clueless about
nonconventional warfare in a jungle environment.Moore (Mel Gibson) arrives with his idyllic
family of supportive wife and perfect kids.A 1950s TV family in a 2000s war movie that wants to be a John Wayne
movie.

Plumley and Moore - comedy team

Moore is in command of a new
type of unit – air cavalry.Helicopters
will take the role of horses.The unit
is the 7th Cavalry and in case you don’t get the reference, the
movie hammers the fact that the 7th was Custer’s unit and you know
what happened to them!We get the
obligatory training montage.The movie is an excellent study in
command.Moore is the classic “lead by
example” commander.He is also very
hands-on in his leadership.This
includes counseling his young officers.For instance, he has a talk with a new father named Lt. Geoghegan (Chris
Klein) in a chapel.The scene is
cringe-inducing with overt religiousity and sappy dialogue.Geoghegan is saintly and soon to be a papa with his new bride (and thus doomed).Moore offers a prayer that concludes with
asking God to disregard the enemy’s prayers and help us kill the “little
bastards”.Hilarious!

Geoghegan and Moore pray to preyon our enemies

The movie makes a concerted
effort to integrate the families into the narrative.Moore tells his daughter that war is when
some people in another country try to take the lives of people and then
soldiers like daddy have to go over and try to stop them.This is not a bad analysis of what the public
was told the war was about in 1964.The
movie introduces us to the officers’ wives.Julie Moore (Madeline Stowe) is the sorority mom.When orders come, the men are enthusiastic
about going off to test their manhood, the wives are stoically nervous.

The unit is sent to the Central
Highlands in 1965.The air cavalry
experiment is about to begin.That
experiment is simple – use mobility to “find the enemy and kill them”.Their first mission is to land in an enemy
area and provoke combat.Hopefully not
against ten to one odds.Oops!Hueys led by Maj. Crandall (Greg Kinnear)
drop them in a clearing designated LZ X-Ray.The tactics are realistic as the Americans come charging off the
choppers guns blazing and immediately establish a perimeter.Things go wrong immediately as the gung-ho
Lt. Herrick (Marc Blucas) goes chasing after an enemy scout and gets himself
killed (“If I have to die. I’m glad to give my life for my country.”) and his
platoon cut off in a position called The Knoll.Sgt. Savage (Ryan Hurst) takes command.The trials the Lost Platoon will go through are incredible.A few men holding out against huge numbers of
the enemy.The fighting gets so
desperate Savage calls artillery fire down on his own position.

"Get those damn pizzas here ASAP"

Inside the perimeter, it’s a
macrocosm of what the Lost Platoon is going through.The landing at LZ X-Ray was like kicking an
ant pile.It turns out there is a NVA
battalion commanded by now Col. An stationed in the hills nearby and they are
up for a fight.Even against the vaunted
U.S. Army.The battle is a series of
enemy assaults and Moore’s attempts to plug the holes with his courageous
few.Crandall’s helicopters participate
by bringing in reinforcements and supplies and medevac the wounded under
fire.They also bring in an intrepid
photojournalist named Joseph Galloway (Barry Pepper).At one point, the NVA get to the command post
and Galloway grabs an M-16 and fights for survival, like everyone else.

little did Galloway know that the future of journalism was bleaker than the battle

At this point the movie jumps to
the home front where the wives are coping with separation, but not death.Then the first telegrams arrive.Julie Moore and Barbara Geoghegan (Keri
Russell) take over delivering the death notices.It’s extremely poignant and effective.Wouldn’t it be extra poignant if one of the
telegrams is for one of them?

Mrs. Geoghegan and Mrs. Stowedelivering telegrams

Meanwhile, day two dawns to more
of the same.Now the VC have joined in,
for Christ’s sake!Geoghegan and a black
soldier make a two man assault so racism can be eliminated and Geoghegan can
leave his body in no man’s land to be found by Moore later.Hail, Hollywood!The enemy break-through in several places and
it begins to look like those Custer premonitions will come to fruition. It gets so bad Moore has to call for “Broken
Arrow” (when all available aircraft drop ordinance on a unit about to be
overrun).Some friendly fire napalm
roasts Pfc. Nakayama because he had made the mistake of bragging about his new
born.Two proud fathers, two doomed
soldiers.The movie implies the Broken
Arrow incident turns the tide.Soon
after, another attempt to reach the Lost Platoon is successful.Savage takes a short breather and then
reenters combat because if you have a name like that …

﻿﻿

Napalm + Hollywood = box office dynamite

On the third day, An plans an
all-out assault to finish off the exhausted Americans and thus convince the
Yankees that South Vietnam is a bad investment.This will be the ultimate vindication for his “grab them by the belt
buckle” solution to American artillery and air support.Col. Joshua Chamberlain, I mean Lt. Col.
Moore, looks at the situation and decides it calls for a bayonet charge.“Fix bayonets!”Moore (Gibson) leads the charge.The enemy are too surprised to fire their
weapons.However, the thrill of the
chase carries our heroes smack into the well- defended enemy bunker
complex.Get more telegrams ready,
including one for Julie Moore.But wait,
the air cavalry arrives in the form of Crandall in a Huey gunship and he
proceeds to Gatling and rocket the enemy to smithereens.USA! USA! USA!

Gen. An puts up tiny American flag to admit the USA is the best!

An licks his wounds and prepares
for the long haul.The media arrives
like vultures to report the great “victory”.Moore is the last to leave, as he promised.The rest is history. Spoiler alert: we lost.

This is a schizophrenic movie.Parts of it are great and parts are not.Not surprising for a movie that tries to be
accurate and entertaining in equal measure.Wallace insisted the movie was as accurate as possible (the same bull
shit he spewed about “Braveheart”) and most of it is.The parts that are aimed at the general
audience make a war movie lover squirm.The Moore family scenes are not pathetic, but it’s obvious Wallace meant
to make the opposite of the unpatriotic, impious Vietnam flicks like “Platoon”,
“Apocalypse Now”, “Full Metal Jacket”, and “The Deer Hunter”.The pre-battle training sequence is
simplistic and heavy in foreshadowing.For instance, Herrick is a tightly-wound glory hound who is likely to
get his men into a trap. Sure ‘nuff.The references to Custer’s Last Stand are too
maladroit.

The trite pre-Vietnam scenes
come to an abrupt end when the unit gets shipped overseas.That scene is powerful with a building score
and no dialogue.In no time at all, they
are in battle.The action is
consistently intense and some of the effects are spectacular.This movie has more combat than a vast
majority of war movies.And yet, believe
it or not, the actual battle was even more intense and violent than the movie.The tactics are realistic for both
sides.The movie is excellent on
helicopter participation in the fighting and air and artillery support.The napalm shots are breathtaking (get
it?).There is even a “mad minute”
moment to get the enemy to reveal their positions.One problem I had was the lack of emphasis on
the role of M-60s in holding off human wave attacks.It could be argued that “We Were Soldiers”
comes closest to accurately portraying a Vietnam battle.

The movie is rolling along
nicely until it jumps the shark with Moore going out in the dark to find
Geoghegan.It is inconceivable that a
commander would risk his life in a situation like that.The scene was obviously forced in to confirm
Moore’s pledge not to leave any men behind.More tears get jerked with the telegram for Barbara.But Wallace saves his best for last with the
abysmal bayonet charge topped off with the Crandall massacre of the remainder
of the enemy.Wallace forces a happy
ending into what was a pretty level-headed narrative.This reminded me a lot of “Pearl Harbor”.Worse, the success of American grit and
firepower in winning the battle dilutes the explicit moral that America will
have a hard time in Vietnam.

﻿

"I know it's not the British, but charge anyway!"

The last ten minutes of the
movie prevent it from being a very good movie, but it still ends up being good
and better than most Vietnam War movies.The acting is good if a bit too earnest and the cast is able.The actors were put through a boot camp.Mel Gibson is not aggravating and gets
Moore’s personality right.It’s obvious
Gibson was comfortable playing a man as religious as he is.Greg Kinnear is strong as Crandall and
Pepper’s late appearance as Galloway gives the movie a second wind.Making the most impact is Sam Elliot as Sgt.
Major Plumley.It’s acting in his sleep,
but the character is a lot of fun, if clicheish.He gets some great lines and provides some
welcome humor without cracking a smile.He does not say a lot, but it’s all quality.Unfortunately, much of the dialogue could
easily fit into a 1940s war film.When
Moore asks Galloway what he is doing there, Galloway says “because I knew these
dead boys would be here.”At one
point,Moore says “There’s nothing wrong
except that there’s nothing wrong.”Apparently, the dialogue is accurate, but it seems hokey.

The movie is technically
proficient as would be expected for a movie costing $70 million.Wallace may be shaky as a screenwriter, but
he does a good job directing.The action
scenes incorporate all the bells and whistles of modern war movies.There are some hand-held shots.There is some slo-mo.Blood splatters on the camera lens.It is a very violent movie.The make-up crew did a remarkable job on some
horrendous wounds. Someone counted the
number of KIAs – 305.The sound effects
are great.The lighting in the night
attacks is admirable.The score is fine
and restrained.

The movie has some admirable
goals.Wallace wants the audience to get
a feel for what military wives go through.Having a military mother and having lived on a base while my father flew
in Vietnam I can attest to the authenticity of the home front scenes.The telegram scenes are not in the book and
may be Hollywood, but they are refreshing for this macho genre.We certainly did not need another stale
romance or love triangle.Stowe is great
as Julie Moore.WWS has a strong female
vibe.Another example of balance is the
coverage of the enemy.This is not
“Black Hawk Down”.The communists are
not faceless.Gen. An (Don Duong) is
sympathetically rendered as are his men. One soldier gets to keep a diary with his
girl’s picture in it and then gets to try to bayonet Col. Moore. They are brave but there is definitely a drone
quality to them.Wallace goes out of his
way to cover their tactics and even implies they will win the war.

Some people sneer at the unambiguous
religiousity of the film and Gibson’s involvement in the film caters to this
criticism.However, my research shows
that Moore is indeed a devout Catholic so the characterization is true to form
although obviously forced into the film (probably at the insistence of Gibson).Considering how a vast majority of war movies
purposely ignore religion, we can excuse WWS for purposefully including God.It has more scenes with religion than any ten
war movies.Hell, even An says a prayer.Another jarring element is the squeaky
cleanness of the American soldiers.This
ain’t “Platoon”.There is no drug use or
sociopathic behavior.Although I would
put the movie in the VioLingo school, I do not think the f word was used a
single time.(Considering the graphic
violence, Wallace’s decision to sanitize the language is bizarre.)Before you cry bogus, this is fairly close to
the 1965 Army especially when you consider these would not be draftees and they
are in an elite unit.They should be
naïve, enthusiastic, and patriotic.

"Now I lay me down to sleep... I pray my enemy's soul to take"

In conclusion, “We Were
Soldiers” could have been the best Vietnam War movie if Wallace had not pulled
his punches in the end.For someone who
wanted to make the most accurate Vietnam War battle movie, it is infuriating
that he would taint his admirable effort with a phony happy ending.Especially when the truth would have fit his
purpose so much better.Still, if you
overlook the bayonet charge, the battle is as good as you are going to get, the
wives get their just due, the soldiers of both sides are positively depicted,
the enemy is sympathetically portrayed, and the movie is an excellent study in
command.Nothing’s perfect.

9 comments:

I admit that I dislike both Randall Wallace and Mel Gibson, but the movie was better than I expected and the battle scenes were superb, so of the best I have ever seen, although I suspect that their second-unit director deserves much of the credit. I agree entirely that it could have so easily been better, but I am just grateful that they avoided painful love triangles or sappy romances. Since you grew up on an air force base during the war, I am even more impressed with the homefront scenes, which I already thought were quite strong. Great review.

The grade seems a little high given the number of criticisms you make. I often have the same problem where I give a movie that does not exactly match the review. A couple of times I have gone back and changed a rating. One was The Steel Helmet after a discussion with you.Also, I don't think you actually said if the movie will crack the top 100. Sappy religiousity is to be expected in a Mel Gibson film, not desired, but expected.

I think this is one movie where the aggravating aspects like the happy ending are forgiven because of the overall quality of the film. I also probably did not give enough credit to the film for not making a mockery of the book. I read the book long before the movie came out and liked it. Whenever that happens you naturally fear for whether the movie will do justice to the book. I think the movie is worthy of the book. As far as the shoving of religion down our throats, I cut it some slack because Moore is quite religious. I also don't mind it balancing all the modern war movies that ignore religion in a war context. That is unrealistic.

Thanks for mentioning me not revealing whether it will make the 100 Best. I would think so. It is much better than many of the films in the 100 Greatest.

I had my problems with this and that's why I never got around to writing a review. Not that I don't think it's in a way a very good movie but it's a problematic movie. Yes, religion is part of the problem I had, not becaise it's used but how it is used. Yeah well. I need to write that review some day. I'd say it's top 50 material nonetheless. It's very graphic.

Agree. I was a bit torn by the fact that Moore is a devout Catholic (as is Gibson) so his portrayal is authentic, but it does seem the screenwriter (with strong influence from Gibson) forced religion into the film. It will be interesting where it ends up in my 100 Best list.

I agree that the happy ending is almost unforgiveable, given that there was an exceedingly tragic twist to this skirmish; where a another batallion of the 7th Cav was all but wiped out in a horrific massacre the very next day just a few miles away at LZ Albany

The whites only scene is perhaps the most cringingly awful scene in any film I have ever seen and I have been a film buff for over 35 yrs. This could have been a great film, but crippled by risible dialogue and clichés.

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About Me

I am an Air Force brat. I lived in Japan while my father flew F-105s in Vietnam. I went to high school in NY and then graduated from LSU and have taught history at New Iberia Sr. High since 1979. I created the Military History course and started the boys soccer program. I blog at "warmoviebuff.blogspot.com"